Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa

By Arthur Neumann

Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa is a collection of the experiences of famous British big game hunter Arthur Neumann hunting elephants. A table of contents is included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles River Editors
• Release date: Mar 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781508018254

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ELEPHANT HUNTING IN EAST EQUATORIAL AFRICA

Arthur Neumann

WAXKEEP PUBLISHING

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Copyright © 2015 by Arthur Neumann

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa

By Arthur Neumann

CHAPTER I.FIRST EXPEDITION FROM MOMBASA

CHAPTER II.ON THE JAMBENI RANGE

CHAPTER III.CAMPING AT MOUNT KENIA

CHAPTER IV.THE NDOROBO COUNTRY

CHAPTER V.NDOROBO ELEPHANT-HUNTING

CHAPTER VI.RETURN TO MOMBASA

CHAPTER VII.SECOND EXPEDITION

CHAPTER VIII.EXCURSIONS FROM EL BOGOI

CHAPTER IX.EXCURSIONS FROM EL BOGOI (CONTINUED)

CHAPTER X.EXCURSIONS FROM EL BOGOI (CONTINUED)

CHAPTER XI.FROM EL BOGOI TO LAKE RUDOLPH

CHAPTER XII.LAKE RUDOLPH

CHAPTER XIII.A SOJOURN AT RESHIAT AND KERE

CHAPTER XIV.RETURN TO LAKE RUDOLPH

CHAPTER XV.RETURN TO LAKE RUDOLPH (CONTINUED)

CHAPTER XVI.EN ROUTE FOR EL BOGOI

CHAPTER XVII.CAMPING AT EL BOGOI

CHAPTER XVIII.EL BOGOI TO MOMBASA

ELEPHANT HUNTING IN EAST EQUATORIAL AFRICA

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BY ARTHUR NEUMANN

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CHAPTER I.FIRST EXPEDITION FROM MOMBASA

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AFRICA IS A BIG country. Few people who have no personal acquaintance with more than one portion of the continent realize how big. Thus in South Africa anything outside of the various colonies and states that make up what is commonly included under that designation used to be somewhere up about the Zambesi, though it might be a thousand more miles beyond. Just so now the average idea of Central Africa held in this country is expressed in the query anywhere near Buluwayo? I would therefore ask you to kindly glance at a map of Africa and notice what a long way Mombasa is from Cape Town, and how far the equator is north of even the Zambesi.

Though Durban is now the handsomest and most up-to-date seaport town in South Africa, when I first landed there early in 1869 it was a comparatively primitive place. Nevertheless I always felt that I had come too late, and listened with envy to the tales of those who were then old colonists about elephants in the Berea bush when they first were Jimmies or newcomers. The elephants had been driven far beyond the borders of the colony by the time my foot first sank into the deep sand which served for the streets then, and I never overtook them in South Africa. The last buffalo even Natal contained was killed a year or two after my arrival. Not but what I did find my way, during the many years I wandered in South-Eastern Africa to where the latter were still in possession—big herds of them; and other game, of every kind peculiar to the country with the one notable exception above mentioned, yet swarmed. Some of those old days might be worth recalling at another time; but they never satisfied me thoroughly. I hankered after the untouched wilds which I knew still existed in Equatorial Africa: where the elephant yet roamed as in primeval times; where one would never see the wheel-mark of a Boer’s wagon nor hear the report any gun but one’s own.

But circumstances—largely connected with a certain emptiness of the pocket—kept me back for something like twenty years from attempting to penetrate into the interior of the continent from another and more favorably situated point. Even when in 1888 when I made my first passing acquaintance with Mombasa (before the days of the Imperial British East Africa Company), as well as other African ports, in the course of a voyage up the east coast, I was deterred by the heavy coast which such an expedition as was said to be necessary to enable one to go any distance inland would entail. Two year later I was there (Mombasa) again; but still the difficulties in the way of making an independent trip after elephants, and the lack of encouragement to undertake it in any other way led me to take service under the East Africa Company for a time, that I might learn something of the country and gain a knowledge of the management of a caravan and a smattering of the Swahili language. Of a little more than a year which I spent thus—first cutting a bush road up the Sabaki River and afterwards joining in an expedition to the interior—it is not my intention to write now, though there may be something worth telling about the latter someday. I had also the opportunity of finding out during that trip that elephants were not more difficult to kill than other game, and resolved to devote myself to their pursuit. Then the offer of an appointment in Zluland took me south again, but only to find after a year that the monotony of the life was unsuited to me. So I reverted to my original plan.

Mombasa had always a great attraction for me. A sleepy, old-world place, with its narrow streets and listless, picturesque inhabitants, it was suggestive of primitive times. If, one thought, the very port is so remote and untouched by modern progressive influences, what mysteries enticing to the imagination may not the interior contain? This, surely, was the very country I had yearned for. The island had, moreover, beauties of its own, though these it is not my province ot describe, such as a picturesque and interesting old fort, a fine harbor, and dreamy shady mango groves run wild producing luscious fruit nearly all the year round. I always enjoyed the time I was detained there. The prospect over the still water in the cool of early twilight or by moonlight was particularly soothing, with the quaint dhows at anchor and fishing canoes paddling in and out or gliding before the soft breeze, a loin-cloth hoisted between two upright wattle serving for sail. The island too was then unspoilt. Such toy tramways as had been laid down were for the most part overgrown with grass and tropical vegetation; overtured dolls’ trucks, rotting in the jungle, but emphasized the supremacy of nature. Now, alas! The place is all railways, iron roofs, and regulations, a change decidedly not for the better from my point for view. Let those who like them describe such improvements.

I make these preliminary observations mainly with a view to showing that I had had considerable African experience all of which was directly or indirectly of the greatest use to describe. I had shot much big game in South-Eastern Africa; had travelled many thousand miles, albeit with different means of transport and had acquired such bush and veldt knowledge as only a long apprenticeship can give—knowledge of the greatest value not only to hlelp one over difficulties but to enable one to understand the varying conditions with which one may be surrounded.

So that I was no novice when, in the end of November 1893, I landed once more in Mombasa, this time prepared to at last carry out my long-cherished scheme for making an independent expedition with my own caravan into the interior, the main object of which should be elephant-hunting. I hoped by this means to recoup myself through the ivory for the outlay incurred in following my bent wandering in the most remote wilds I could reach. My weapons were a double .577 (which I had already once had the opportunity of testing on elephants, with good results), a single .450—both of these by Gibbs,—a .250 rifle, and a shotgun. This last is afterwards discarded as unnecessary, while tis cartridges were an encumbrance. To these I added a common Martini-Henry.

I know by experience that the routine of organizing and fitting out an expedition, starting it from the coast, and even the first part for the journey itself make uninteresting reading, and anything that I may think worth mentioning on these subjects I can more conveniently allude to elsewhere; I will, therefore, not worry my readers with tedious preliminaries of the kinds now, beyond saying hat in one month I was ready with about fifty men (all of whom I armed with Snider carbines) and some twenty donkeys to start for the bara or interior, with the intention of getting as far as I could and being away as long as I liked. That way, I consider, a short time to take in all the preparations work done, and I had brought nothing but my guns and cartridges with me; but porters were plentiful, and I was known to them, not unfavorable—my very Swahili name, Nyama Yagu (my meat or my game), being suggestive of good times. My headman was not altogether a happy selection. He was a most polite, polished, and picturesque Swahili gentleman of Arab descent, but not very practical. Plucky, he was, as I afterwards found, but somewhat procrastinating and over punctilious about strict Mahomedan observances to be altogether suitable to the rough-and-ready life we had to lead. Owing partly to this not too suitable appointment, some undesirable men got written on as porters. There are abuses in the manner of engaging these men; and if not very carefully looked after, the wily rupee plays an important but discriminating part in their choice quite unconnected with any useful qualifications. The result became apparent pretty soon, but not, fortunately, on any very serious scale.

Our start, two days before Christmas, was most smooth and propitious. The men all turned up, and never was there a happier and more enthusiastic a lot of porters nor, for the most part, a finer. Two or three desertions took place a day or two after, causing a little, temporary inconvenience, and one gentleman took the belt containing my watch with him, which had been hung on a bush behind me while I was seeing the caravan off in the dusk. But strange to say-whether because his conscience pricked him or that he could not sell what it was so apparent he must have stolen—he came back of his own accord, watch and all, a few days later. I forgave him, and he was a faithful and reliable for the rest of the trip.

Having had long experience of both ways of travelling, I prefer on the whole the Central African system of a caravan of porters for a hunting trip to the ox-wagons of South Africa. Of course the latter means of transport have many advantages and the others their drawbacks, and probably many people would disagree with my conclusion. But with the safari one is more mobile, independent of roads, and never has those terrible stickfasts—so upsetting to plans and tempers—to which wagons are liable.

I have no intention of inflicting upon the reader a description of the wearisome details of caravan travelling. It is less monotonous to go through than to read about. The exercise keeps you in good health, as a rule, and there is always something to be done which prevents the afternoons hanging heavily upon your hands; while the constant change, even from one disagreeable camp to another, makes a variety of a kind—never so tedious as stagnation. One soon shakes down to the life, and finds one’s tent as comfortable as any house, while in the former you can never become a nuisance to your neighbors. Breakfasting in the dark at 4 A.M. is trying to one when fresh civilized habits, I admit; but one has to and does get broken in even to that, and a most important thing for one’s comfort during the march it is to be able to eat heartily at such unearthly hours.

I had decided to mae Laiju—a district on the north side of the Tana, and lose to the foot of the Njambeni or Jambeni range, which is a little east of Mount Kenia—my first objective point, and to get as much farther north in the direction of Lake Rudolph as I should be able, or as circumstances might seem to make desirable. I ventured to disregard advice to take the Tana River route—involving a sea voyage, a fresh organization, and a journey through difficult and unhealthy fly-infested bush all the way, with little useful help from canoes (which could not take animals) against the stream—and elected for the overland one through northern Ukambani. But I made the mistake of going round by Kibwezi on the Uganda road, instead of following the more direct and convenient path used by Swahili traders and Wakamba visiting the coast. At the little German mission station of Ikutha, where one enters Ukambani, I passed the last outpost of civilization in this direction. I have reason to feel the greatest gratitude to its hospitable head (Mr. Sauberlich) for many kindnesses and ready assistance in various ways. Shortly after leaving there I met Mr. Chanler returning to the coast. I had already had the advantage of some talks with Lieutenant Von Hohnel (previously Count Teleki’s companion) in Mombasa, who had been hurt by a rhinoceros while travelling in his company, and from both these gentlemen I received much useful information. I had long previously, though, heard of Laiju and the Ndorrobo country beyond from Swahili traders as a good one for elephants, and resolved to make that direction my aim, and as much farther as I could attain. It had the special attraction for me that the country that way was least known, and I was not likely to be hampered by rival travelers, official or otherwise, there. Chanler gave me a little half-bred terrier, named Frolic, which proved a charming little companion, and continued so until her sad death on another expedition.

There is nothing worth recording in the way of sport during all this part of the journey. The uninhabited (principally desert) country traversed previous to entering Ukambani has but little game, though here and there an odd head may be picked-up,—a Coke’s hartbeeste, impala or zebra,—and a few guinea-fowl sometimes help the pot.

But one animal, to which considerable interest attaches, deserves more particular mention. In some parts of the country to the left (or south) of the road between Duruma and Taita—as, for example, about Pika-Pika and Kisigau, and sometimes not far from Ndara—a gazelle is to be found about which naturalists seem somewhat confused, namely G. Petersi. Some authorities seem to regard this antelope as a mere local variety of G. Granti; but I am strongly of opinion that it is quite distinct, and, while taking the place of the latter in the coast regions, may be regarded as almost intermediate between it and G. Thomson. I am able to illustrate this by a photograph of a series of skulls of the three species in my possession. These have, I may explain, not been specially selected, but are some of those I have shot, which I happen to have kept. It will be seen that they form a regular gradation, the females corresponding exactly with the males in their peculiarities. I am sorry that I have not been able to figure a female Thomson’s gazelle skull, as it appears there is not one in England, not even in the Museum. I have, however, been kindly given the photographs of two mounted heads (the only ones, so far as I can discover, in existence in this country), one of which is reproduced. It is a curious thing that the female off this gazelle seems almost to be in a state of uncertainty as to whether it ought to bear horns or not. For, while many specimens, like that illustrated, have properly developed symmetrical horns, in some they are more or less imperfect, others again being hornless.

Through Ukambani there is no game—there are too many natives—and the march is not interesting. I will, therefore, skip this part for the journey, fly across the Tana with its wide shallow valley full of monotonous dense scrub, and land my reader at Laiju, about five weeks’ caravan journey from the coast by the most direct route (though I did not reach there until 22nd February 1894), which may be considered as practically the commencement of the game country in this direction.

Arrived here the first thing to be done was to establish friendly relations with the natives of the district, and open up a food trade. This was not difficult, since Chanler had been on good terms with them, and had been careful to keep market prices for produce within reasonable bounds, for which I felt grateful to my predecessor. So the preliminary negotiations only lasted a couple of days, and on the third Baikenda, one of the leading men the immediate neighborhood—a weird-looking, wizened old savage, suffering from rheumatism—came with his retinue, bringing the sacrificial sheep, and we went through the ceremony of eating blood most solemnly and impressively. I then made their hearts white with presents, as their bodies with calico, and Baikenda and I became, as he put it, as if born of one mother, emphasizing the relationship with expressive pantomime by squeezing suggestively his shriveled old breast with his hand.

It is a fertile district, and food was to be had in fair abundance and considerable variety. Luscious bananas were plentiful and fine yams cheap and good. My cook used to make me what he called smash-em-up of the latter-a capital substitute for mashed potatoes: indeed, as regards vegetable products, I lived better while here than I ever did again, and often, when restricted for months and months together to porridge and cakes of coarse dry meal in the barren country farther north, did I think of those delicious bananas.

Intending to make this my headquarters for a while, and finding Chanler’s boma too straggling to be a secure depot in which to leave my good sin charge of a few men (though I used it as a camp myself), I spent some time in building a strong little stockade for this purpose. Various circumstances, into the details of which it is not necessary to enter, prevented my making any extended hunting trip for a much longer time than I had intended to delay here. I was ble to obtain meat easily enough, as a game of one sort or another was generally to be found within a long walk of my camp—waterbuck and zebra being the most numerous—and the young natives were always pleased to accompany me, being keen for meat, though they had a curious prejudice against letting their women kind see them with any.

Of my first small excursion in quest of elephants—although unsuccessful in that I did not get a sight of any—a short account may not be uninteresting, since I saw a good deal of other game, and had a certain amount of sport; but elephant-hunting being the main object of my expedition—as it is to be the principal subject of this book—I will not dwell too much upon it. It occupied little more than a fortnight, and the farthest point I reached was probably not more than about forty miles as the crow flies away from my main camp. Laiju is about east-north-east for Kenia (which, by the way, the natives here cal Kilimara), and the direction we took was nearly due east—but slightly to the south by compass—from the former place.

An old Ndorobo, to whom I had been introduced by Baikenda, and who, being too feeble to hunt, lived here generally as a sort of dependent of his—mainly on charity—had offered to show me where elephants were, within two or three days’ journey; and, as I was not yet in a position to start on a long trip, I gladly accepted his offer, in hopes of putting in a little of the time I was obliged to wait pleasantly and perhaps profitably. The Ndorobos, of whom I shall have more to say later on, are a kind of degraded Masai, living on game, honer, etc., in the bush, something after the style of the South African bushmen, the grand object of their desires being elephants. They live a more or less nomadic life in small communities scattered over a wide extent of East Equatorial Africa, where no settled inhabitants are. The wild region from here northward to Lake Rudolph is left entirely to them.

On my outward journey, although I saw plenty of game, I did not do more shooting than just to supply my men and self with meat, for which a zebra or two and one or two Grant’s gazelles sufficed. I will go more into detail describing our return journey, as it was then that I did most shooting. But first, touching the elephants. We had crossed several beautiful streams the head waters of a considerable tributary of the Tana, which Chanler and Von Hohnel have called the Mackenzie River-ad got into a pretty dry country beyond, where there was hardly any game. All the way the bush was more or less open and easy to walk through, as we avoided the thicker parts. Our old guide was rather tedious, insisting on our making short stages each day, having always some excuse, such as the next water being a long way ahead, or that we might come suddenly into the elephants’ haunts and disturb them prematurely. In reality he was in no hurry; having plenty of meat he enjoyed himself dawdling along, camping early, and cooking and eating the rest of the day. He was, however, such a nice old chap that I could never get wild with him; indeed, we were great chums, he was such a pleasant contrast to the uncouth natives of this district, who have no shadow of an idea of courtesy, while he, on the contrary, was a polite old gentleman, like a Masai. He called me Papa (with the accent, however, on the first syllable), and as he was a much older man than I—though with fewer gray hairs, I am bound to confess—I could not do less, regarding the old fellow quite affectionately as I did, than return the compliment so we always called each other Papa.

Well, at last we did get elephant spoor. The first we found was two days old, but it proved the elephants were in the locality. Old Papa was quite moved with the sight, it was touching to see him. Holding up his hand toward the sky he prayed, Ngai (God), give us elephants, looking so earnest the while one could not but sympathize with his feelings, even if I had not been myself equally anxious for success. A little farther on the old man was deeply affected by coming upon some droppings, taking one of the dry loaves of vegetable fiber fondly in his hands and breaking it open to see whether still moist inside, so as to judge its age. The elephant is clearly the acne of the Ndorobo’s ideas of happiness. He would wish for unlimited elephants, just as you or I might for 10, 000 a year. Elephant’s fat, in particular, seems to be the summit of their desires. Oh! If I could but feed on elephant’s fat, said my old friend, my wife would not know me when I went back, so sleek and pump should I become.

Where we first bound this spoor was near a small spring at which we had slept, at the base of a rocky koppie. Here there was a deserted Ndorobo camp, where Papa’s clan had been about a month before. He showed me which had been his hut. The huts were mere gypsy shelters. There was a good-sized collection of them here. They did not seem to have had much success in hunting, judging by the bones which were but few, about; among them were those of a giraffe. Several times in this country we came upon little circular low screens of branches, close to what were, when there was rain, small pools in the parched ground; in these, Papa told me, the Ndorobo hunters watched by night for game.

We were now taken on to a sandy stream bed, where our guide said the elephants were in the habit of drinking, and in the neighborhood of which he felt confident they then were. We kept silence on the march on this day. Except or an odd Waller’s gazelle or two here and there, and occasionally a little giraffe spoor, the country now seemed gameless. We at length entered the dry bed of the watercourse, and after following it up for some distance came, to Papa’s intense excitement, to where elephants (a few only) had dug in the sand for water the night before. We camped not far off to leeward and kept perfectly quiet, after sunset putting our fires out and neither speaking nor stirring. It was hardly dark when we heard the elephants farther up the stream, fortunately to windward, They were evidently drinking.

I had, of course, great hopes of success now; and next morning was ready, as soon as it was light enough, to follow the spoor. In this, however, poor old Papa failed, much to my astonishment. I had been told by Von Hohnel that Ndorobos were not good at spooring; but could hardly believe that he must have been mistaken. However, mine could not keep it in hard dry ground; and after casting about all morning he was at length forced to confess that he was not able to spoor with certainty except after rain. The poor old fellow was so downhearted, being much more disappointed than I myself, that I could not be put out with him, although he had led me all this dance and wasted so much of my time for nothing. At that time neither I nor my gun-bearers had had much experience at spooring elephants, the ground was very hard with no long grass, and, our guide having failed us, I thought it was useless now thinking more of elephants this time so next morning we marched back in the direction we had come from. How I wished for a couple of good South African to spoor for me! I have never had bushmen with me, but some of the Tongas and Shanganes living in the game districts of South-Eastern Africa are good enough for me. Had I been able to follow these elephants in such easy bush to hunt in I might have had a splendid chance at them.

We took a more direct route returning, and the first day slept at the most easterly of the head streams of the Mackkenzie; my intention being to go on to the second next day and camp there for a few days to shoot meat to carry back partially dried to the boma. On our way the first day, when within